House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer are calling on Mitch McConnell to come to the negotiating table on COVID-19 stimulus, using the not very good bipartisan Senate proposal as the basis for negotiations, "in the spirit of compromise."
"While we made a new offer to Leader McConnell and Leader McCarthy on Monday, in the spirit of compromise we believe the bipartisan framework introduced by Senators yesterday should be used as the basis for immediate bipartisan, bicameral negotiations," they write. "Of course, we and others will offer improvements, but the need to act is immediate and we believe that with good-faith negotiations we could come to an agreement." Those improvements need to include at least one more round of direct payments to everyone, the most effective and quickest way to both help struggling people right away, and to boost the economy. It's a mystery why direct payments—which the Trump administration and Republican senators have supported all along—weren't included in that compromise plan. They should be a must have. They should repurpose the $300 billion that would go into another round of the Paycheck Protection Program, which is in the proposal but shouldn't be as new revelations about it have surfaced. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.)
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Dozens of the nation's leading economists have urgently called for more direct payments, calling that stimulus "one of the quickest, most equitable, and most effective ways to get families and the economy back on track." Pelosi and Schumer write "In light of the urgency of meeting the needs of the American people and the hope that the vaccine presents, it's time for Leader McConnell to sit down with Democrats to finally begin a true, bipartisan effort to meet the needs of the country." Many of those needs would be met with cash. It has to be included.
The total cost of the bipartisan proposal introduced this week is $908 billion, well short of the $2.2 trillion Democrats last fought for. If they're going to come down that far, they've got to make what's included in there do the most work possible. Providing PPP funding and not providing direct aid to people won't cut it. The $160 billion for state and local governments is good, the $180 billion in aid for unemployed Americans is good, as is $50 billion to health care and vaccine distribution. The inclusion of a "temporary" liability shield for businesses—letting them off the hook for protecting their employees from getting infected—is not.
McConnell answered that proposal with the worst, cruelest proposal yet, rejecting that proposal even though it came a lot closer to what he's been pushing than it does what Pelosi and Schumer have been sticking to. This could be the two Democrats betting that they'll be answered with the back of McConnell's hand. That's likely. But it's also possible that McConnell will come back with an even worse proposal—that's what he's done every time thus far. He's met Democratic concessions with slashes in his own proposals consistently. There's also the danger that he agrees to this bill now and then refuses to allow the Biden administration any more. Because he's a fucking monster.
But, yes, something has got to give and help has to get out there one way or another. It really needs to be the most money to the most people with the least rigamarole for them as possible. It needs to set the stage for the states and local governments to work to undertake what's going to be the biggest vaccination program ever undertaken in the U.S. Hopefully this concession from Pelosi and Schumer results in at least some of that happening.
